Darkling I Listen: The Last Days and Death of John Keats

On October 21, 1820, John Keats set foot in Rome for what he hoped would be a swift convalescence that would return him to his normally energetic pace of writing. Exactly one hundred days later, he succumbed to consumption, dead at the age of twenty-five. This charming, elegiac, and detailed book brings to light the last days of his life, describing what he experienced in his room overlooking the quaint Piazza di Spagna and his tragically unrealized ambitions for the future. Keats' famous love affair with the young Fanny Brawne has long fascinated biographers, but Walsh shows for the first time how complex their relationship was, and how the events at the end of Keats' life illuminate the whole of their affair. He also discusses Keats' views on religion and the exact nature of the illness that killed him. This book is a must-read for those interested in Keats, and will delight anyone who follows Walsh's curiosity into the life and death of a gifted and tragic poet.